Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)

Excellent but underrated film

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Reviewers who complain that Charles Busch is not believable as a woman - comparing him unfavorably with Divine, et al - miss the point. Busch is in a class all his own, and comparing him to ANYBODY else limits the viewer's ability to enjoy what he offers.He's not SUPPOSED to be a believable woman. He's like a precocious kid who loves to dress up and act like glamorous movie stars from the long-gone days when EVERYBODY overacted, when ALL stars were hams, before Marlon Brando changed the nature of screen acting forever.Unless you can enter Busch's unique world on HIS terms, you won't like his movies. He's letting us watch him act out his glamorous fantasies, the same delightful fantasies he's been acting out since he was a child.He's not a drag queen, he's not a female impersonator, he's not a cross-dresser or a transvestite. He is a MAN - but with the sweet, innocent, wide-eyed, starstruck heart of a little boy - who has a whole lot of fun dressing up like and acting like Bette Davis or Joan Crawford or Olivia de Havilland. He invites us to join in the game.It's fun, unless you're trying to fit it into some mold it doesn't belong in.

Former pop singer, now living in Los Angeles in the 1960s, is suspiciously defensive over memories of her now-deceased twin sister; she wages a series of battles with her estranged husband, hateful daughter, gay son, tippling maid and an overly-curious gigolo while bodies start piling up. Self-conscious, self-reverential camp comedy, based on the kind of play that brings down the house in hip urban dives, has its tongue too far in cheek. Playwright and star Charles Busch, a built-like-a-brick diva, gives himself the juiciest lines but doesn't seem to realize the funniest movies in the camp-genre are ones which don't realize just how over-the-top they are (camp, per se, is best served accidentally). This piece does have some very funny lines (such as Busch's Bette Davis-like "I'm clearin' out the deadwood!"), a great acid-trip sequence, but a reedy murder-mystery plot with a severe case of "Dead Ringer"-itis. **1/2 from ****

Yes it i campy, yes it is a "gay" flick (whatever that is)... but it is a great Indy film which uses good old fashioned stagecraft and leave the FX to other films with lesser plots. Of course I am not gay, but I love good film. and this is good film.I have read the commentary on the DVD and I was touched that they even mentioned the Architect of the house. As an architect myself, I know we are a hidden bunch. The home is a great piece of California Hillside architecture, and Paul Williams is a master.An interesting point is this film was shot in 18 days...I read a snippet where this was not in Nebraska.... Well after living here 15 years, I could provide Mr. Busch with enough material about Norfolk to keep him busy for quite some time.

Screenwriter Charles Busch has adapted 'Die Mommie Die' from his own stage play. A transvestite, Busch also plays the lead role of Angela Arden, a washed-up torch singer in the late 1960's who murders her movie producer husband by giving him an arsenic-laced suppository. Other characters include her incest-oriented virgin daughter, her gay teen son and her bisexual stud boyfriend who manages to run through her, her son and her daughter before he's through with the family.'Die Mommie Die' has all the makings of a nifty little satire in the style of John Waters. Alas, Busch, who is clearly in the bush leagues when it comes to film-making, spends so much time trying to be arch that he forgets to be funny. The story, which is a cross between 'Mommie Dearest' and 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,' is rife with campy possibilities, but the film never catches fire, maintaining far too subdued and restrained a tone for this kind of material. Under Mark Rucker's lagging direction, the pacing turns deadly, with the jokes coming a full beat and a half behind where they ought to. Moreover, the deliberately stilted writing and acting are too cute by half, calling so much attention to themselves that they wind up diluting their effectiveness in the process. It's a shame that what should have been a rollicking, manic good time at the movies turns instead into a funereal misfire. Rarely have ninety minutes passed so slowly.